Sarah Zettel - Reclamation

She smiled her twisted smile. “From my mother, when she showed me my namestones for the first time.” She touched the pouch again. “That Notouch was my ancestress. The way she made the Realm ‘hear’ was with the stones I’m carrying. Or so the story goes, but our stories are turning out to be remarkably close to the truth, are they not?”

“What manner of Notouch are you?” Eric asked softly. “I’ve been over the World’s Wall for ten years and I never, ever thought like this.”

“You never wanted to,” she said simply. “You wanted to run away and you did. I, however, wanted to understand what the Skymen wanted of us. Now, I do.” She closed her jaw so firmly, Eric heard her teeth click together. “They want to get their flabby hands on my children. I will prevent this, Teacher Hand. If it costs my life and my name, I swear I will.”

For a moment all he could do was stare at her fierce, unwavering expression. “That’s why you left the Realm? Just to find out what the Skymen wanted?”

She laughed deprecatingly. “I admit, I didn’t think I’d find myself over the World’s Wall. I went to the Skymen because…” she shook her head. “I also thought the Words were lies. The Skymen were friends with the Heretics. The Heretics have been known to violate the caste laws. I thought if I helped the Skymen in their aims, I would be able to secure their favor and they might persuade King Silver to raise my family from the ranks of the Notouch.” She traced her scars again, slowly, meditatively. “I thought to keep my children from groveling in the mud all their lives. I did not know that to save my family, I would have to save the Realm.” She glanced up at him. “Or indeed, even save one Teacher. Nor did I expect to find that the Words of the Teachers were closer to the truth than the words of the Heretics.” She sighed. “But the Nameless did not ask my permission when they opened their eyes, did they?”

Eric realized he was staring. Of course she would have children. She would have been married shortly after she hit pubescence, and started having babies right away. He was an overindulged rarity and had only been allowed to stay unmarried because his older sister was already producing power-gifted heirs. He knew that. It was the way of the Realm.

So why was it hitting him so hard to hear that this woman, this Notouch woman, was married?

“You did all this for your children?” he rubbed his palms together. “That’s…very brave.”

She shrugged. “I grew up being told I had been chosen by the Nameless, and yet I was treated like a Notouch. It was… difficult. Infuriating. I wished to spare my children.” She looked at him curiously. “What drove you out here?”

Lady Fire’s curses, his son, red, wet, and bawling, in his power-gifted hands, his father’s voice, Heart’s wary eyes…

“The Words of the Nameless Powers,” he muttered.

“Strange,” Aria folded her arms. “The Words of the Nameless forbid climbing the World’s Wall. ‘There is no place for you but here.’” She touched her hands again.

“They also say a Teacher may bear or sire children without marriage, but only if the other is unwed, and they say that anyone who knowingly harbors one who does not hear the Words in the Temple must recant or be executed.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “The words of the Nameless say too much to be endured.”

Aria glanced away toward the view wall and didn’t ask any more.

“Listen, Aria.” Eric leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees. “I understand why you want to return, truly I do, but even if there was something we could do, there is still no way to reach the Realm. If we had an armed shuttle or an upgraded runner and an experienced crew, maybe, maybe, we could make it, but this is only a runner’s side ship and I’m little more than a glorified passenger. I never had the thirteen years it takes to learn to pilot one of these by oneself.”

A gleam sparked in the depths of Aria’s black eyes. “So my Lord Teacher does not really know if this ship could get past the Vitae, does he?”

Eric pulled back. “Yes, I do know.”

“You just said you did not.” Now she leaned forward, eagerness shining in her features. “Does the ship know?”

“What?”

“Does the ship know? Are there records? Histories, documents of what it has done in the past? Maybe…” She frowned. “Operational parameters?” She spoke the last two words in Standard.

“And if there were?” Her confidence nagged at him. It was ridiculous. He’d left her barely three weeks ago, but that was time enough for her to realize how complex life was out here.

What does she expect of me?

“Then I might be able to find us a way to dodge the Vitae’s prying eyes.”

Eric threw back his head and laughed. “You! Aria, they may have taught you to read and write at the labs, but you’ve got no idea the level of complexity we’re dealing with. It takes years to learn how to operate even a simple ship…”

“If my Lord Teacher will permit me to finish,” she said tartly, “this despised one might be able to tell him how she intends to manage it.”

She told him about her stones in short sentences and carefully chosen words, as if she had been rehearsing the speech so she wouldn’t make any mistakes. Eric realized that was probably exactly what she had done.

When she finished, he said, “That’s insane.”

“No more insane than what you can do.” She gestured toward his hands. “You should hear yourself talk. You are so convinced that these Skymen and their steel and silicon are so superior, you’ve never even stopped to ask why they care about us. You! A Teacher, a power-gifted, the first among the People along with the Royals. If we are so inferior, so…primitive and so close to death, why are the Skymen willing to make war over us? If the Realm is such a barren, useless piece of rock, what is their interest in it? You cannot tell me the all-powerful Vitae just want a place to warm their feet. You cannot tell me the Unifiers are acting for our poor benefit.” She leaned forward again. “Let me prove to you what I can do. Let me prove to you the worth of those named by the Nameless.”

It was too much. It was not enough. She could sit there and lecture him, she hadn’t seen…she didn’t know…she’d never slaved for them the way he had, never sold herself for their protection and their money.

“I am not a servant of the Nameless,” he said. “I have known too many other masters since then.”

To his surprise, she started to laugh. Her whole body shook with it, and she dropped her forehead into her hands.

“Oh, Nameless Powers preserve me!” she giggled. “Oh, Garismit’s Eyes!” She lifted her head again and there were tears streaming down her cheeks. “Do you think the Nameless care who else you serve? The Teachers serve the Temples, the Nobles and the Royals serve themselves, and the Nameless do not care.”

His hands opened wide at his side, the fingers straight and rigid as sticks of wood. “You don’t understand! The Aunorante Sangh found the Realm because of me! I led them straight to it! This is all happening because of my heresy!”

His breathing was ragged and his throat was raw and his ears rang.

Aria watched him silently for a moment, then she said, “All the more reason you should go back and make it right.”

He wanted to shout that it was not that simple, that there was no returning, not for him, not ever, that he would not give them satisfaction by recanting his actions. That he could not, he would not, be forced to regret what he had done in front of the Seablade House, however much he might do so when he was alone.

But he couldn’t. All he could do was stand there and shake like a terrified fool, watching her watch him with her impassive, unforgiving eyes.